5 Years later...

I just did my last exam. Psychology. A bit of a weird ending to my engineering studies, especially since it was scheduled after my thesis presentation which was yesterday. Both went well. Which prooves that it is possible to study when you're slightly tipsy after four glasses of wine (professors kept giving me refills) on a nice BBQ for all the graduating civil engineering students. My exam was, very conviently of course, scheduled after the BBQ and on my birthday. Apart from that it I did it the usual way: 2 hours of sleep and a lot of perseverence.
Luckily, the examination location made up for that. It was in 'de Plateau', which is the huge old building were I had most of my courses during the first two years. It's also the building where I stood on the roof, sat on the stone steps, made all my friends, felt my stomach turn each time I walked past my first exam schedule, got bad eyes staring at computer screens, drank sangria in the hall, gave BEST presentations, slept in the attic, got thrown out of classes once (What a shock! I became a good student since that day), prayed before exams, put up posters, got punished by 'Santa Claus', called my parents to tell them I'd passed etc... What a lot of memories!

I look around the big empty hall in that old faculty building, and suddenly I can remember exactly what it was like when I walked through those gigantic doors for the first time in my life, nearly 5 years ago, to do the engineering entrence exam (which was abolished three years back by the way). Just turned 18, in the middle of 400 totally unknown guys, which ALL looked like nerds to me at that time :-). Sorry guys, looking back on things that must have been a side effect of my nerves (or yours), but I can't help remembering the first thing I thought was 'Oh my gosh, it's all true what they say about engineers!' :-p. I was never so stressed for an exam as that one, after the main hall the second place I saw was the toilet!

Well, it's five years later now... and I just walked out of those doors for the last time, kind of like very consciously closing a big volume of my life (yes, mine comes in volumes, not chapters ;-)). It was about time too, because the hard disk of my laptop is full.

I'm 23 since 6 o'clock this morning, and for the first time in my life I actually feel like a grown up. And you know what, it's very, very nice...

"Scherven brengen geluk"

Is it normal that when you switch on the light in your room (which has been working fine the past months), the lightbulb just explodes and falls into 1000 pieces all over your floor, desk, chair, bed, even into your printer? I guess not... but then that reminds me that I wasn't exactly living a 'normal life' to begin with, and that it's definitely not going to get more normal the coming years. Thank goodness for the Dutch saying 'scherven brengen geluk', which means broken glass brings good luck. I'll keep this in mind when I leave in a helicopter to an offshore platform!

A midsummer's song

I just started songwriting. I suddenly realised that it's actually really easy, once you decide what key to write the song in. I'm probably not a talent, just good enough to have fun myself with my guitar while nobody's listening. Anyway, the first song already has a chorus and a bridge. The verses are still missing. The lyrics are, well yeah, a bit soppy. I can't help it, it's midsummer's night tonight and that puts me in a romantic mood by default. :-D
Well, I'm back to my books, this exam period is becoming way too productive on the artistic side, haha. Enjoy your night and be careful not to end up with a donkey's head or fall in love with the wrong person!
(If you don't know what I'm talking about, you definitely have a hole in your English literature...)

Photoshop fun

Freaky what you can do to yourself...
Now that I know what I'd look like with dark hair,
all I still need is an age program to find out what I'd look like in 30 years...

Home for a while

After handing in my thesis last Tuesday, and a couple of nice days with my lovely Slovenian friend Maja, I find myself at home alone again, relaxing a bit after everything before starting to study for the last exams. I also realised recently that this is actually only the 2nd time since the start of the year that I've been home for more than two weeks. Home meaning in Belgium with nothing to do except 'normal things'. The first time was during the January exams. I made a little list for myself, before I start to forget where I've been and what I've done ;-) I only started counting since January, to keep the list a reasonable length:

5/1 - 10/1: delivering BEST training in Reykjavik, Iceland
11/2 - 18/2: participating (and delivering training) in BEST WorkShop in Kranska Gora, Slovenia
20/2 - 24/2: organising BEST Career Event in Ghent, Belgium
3/3 - 5/3: participating (and delivering training) in BEST PM Motivation Weekend, Bruges, Belgium
10/3 - 12/3: organising (and really ill during) LifeXP preparation weekend, Belgium
15/3 - 20/3: participating (and getting trained) in BEST trainers meeting, Brussels, Belgium
24/3 - 26/3: participating in P&G Management Games, Brussels, Belgium
2/4 - 10/4: participating in European Geosciences Union General Assembly, Vienna, Austria
19/4 - 29/4: participating in BEST General Assembly, Rabac, Croatia
11/5 - 13/5: job interview in Milan, Italy

What a list! What a lucky girl I am!
I'm enjoying the quiet now before summer starts, busy again up to my standards :-)
And after that, I move to Italy and real life starts...